“Being out there in the ocean, God’s creation, it’s like a gift He has given us to enjoy.”
— Bethany Hamilton
For nearly three decades, Dave Quinton had one of the best-known names and faces in Newfoundland and Labrador. Even his voice was instantly recognizable to practically every person in the province at the time.
There were other hosts of the most highly regarded TV program in Newfoundland and Labrador, but the one who became the icon of CBC Television’s Land and Sea show was Dave Quinton. In this province he is a living legend.
His high profile in the 1960s through to the early 1990s resulted not only from hosting the television program for all those years. It was more than that. His audience revered Dave because of his sincerity and respect for ordinary people. A very modest man, he only put himself in front of the camera when absolutely necessary, choosing instead to focus the lens, literally, on his guests. Whether they were fishermen, farmers, or dignitaries, to the genial host of Land and Sea they were all equals and the real stars of the show.
As famous as Dave was as a television host, there are many other interesting things about him. Born and raised in St. John’s, he spent his summers with relatives in Red Cliff, Bonavista Bay. The rocky little enclave is now almost a ghost town, but for Dave the place still holds magical memories, as he describes it. Much of Dave’s great love of the culture and heritage of rural Newfoundland and Labrador today was fostered from those childhood days in Red Cliff.
“I still have vivid memories of being out in boat all the time and of capelin coming ashore and of trout fishing in Tickle Cove Pond”—the same pond that became immortalized in one of Newfoundland and Labrador’s most famous folk songs, as sung by Ron Hynes.
Dave in his home office, St. John’s.
After graduating from high school, Dave thought engineering was his calling, but he later veered toward forestry and wildlife and studied at the University of New Brunswick (UNB), spending summers working in the wilderness, trapping live animals for university research projects. “I mostly lived under canvas in those years,” he laughs.
Eventually, Dave decided on biology and studied at Memorial University of Newfoundland, graduating with a science degree in 1960.
Despite having acquired a relatively high level of education, Dave wanted a little adventure before being tied down to a job. He and a buddy crossed the Atlantic by ship, and in England they each bought a used bicycle and rode all the way to Spain. Six or seven months later, it was time to come home, but Dave realized he didn’t have enough money to buy a ticket, so he had to get a job and save enough to pay the fare across the Atlantic.
The job he landed wasn’t a match for his qualifications, but it was certainly an interesting venue.
“I went to this office and told them I was looking for a job, any job, and they left me in a waiting room for a while. Every now and then a couple of them would look out the door and size me up and go back talking, until finally someone came out and said, ‘You can start this job tomorrow morning. It’s at Buckingham Palace. Be there at seven o’clock.’”
Dave points out that security surrounding the royals wasn’t like it is today. “I don’t know if I had an honest face or what, but there was no security check on me, as far as I know, and with my Newfoundland-Irish accent, I could have been IRA, for all they knew. I must have had a look of innocence.”
Dave jokes about his time working at the palace, pointing out that it wasn’t as glamorous as it sounds at first.
“I was a labourer, helping the gardeners and things like that. After the royals had a garden party, I would have to pick up the cigarette butts,” he laughs.
Dave describes the Buckingham Palace grounds as “huge and meticulously manicured.” He didn’t rub shoulders with many royals, but he would see them out walking. “It seemed to me the grounds were almost the size of Bowring Park.” Prince Charles was a young teenager at the time, but Dave remembers Prince Andrew as a small child, and the nanny would bring him around in a stroller. “I’d talk to Andrew in baby talk sort of thing, and off they’d go,” he recalls fondly.
Eventually, Dave made enough money to come home and soon got a job as a provincial government wildlife biologist. While in that position he was approached to do some media work promoting the various government programs his department was working on. That led to doing interviews and programs on VOCM Radio at first, and later, CBC Radio got in on the act and did something similar. Through that media involvement, two CBC Radio personalities took notice of the young wildlife biologist’s media skills. They approached him about joining the CBC.
That was in 1964, and the CBC was broadcasting a one-hour farm program every day along with a fifteen-minute daily program called Fisheries Broadcast dealing with the Newfoundland fishing industry. Filling one and a quarter hours of airtime every day was a difficult task for the two hosts, but things were getting a lot more hectic—CBC Television was about to launch a half-hour resources show called Land and Sea. Dave liked the idea and accepted the job offer, joining Jack Watts and Rab Carnell to present two radio programs and the new television show.
Broadcast technology back then was very basic, and Dave soon discovered that in order to get the three shows done, he had to work nearly seven days a week. But it worked out, and as things evolved, Dave soon became almost exclusively involved with Land and Sea, and because Rab preferred radio to TV, he took over the farm and fish shows.
Dave’s career with Land and Sea lasted twenty-seven years but came to an abrupt and unhappy end in 1991 when the CBC decided to cancel the program. Public outrage, channelled through various outlets including demonstrations and protests led largely by Bill Kelly, a former Land and Sea host, forced the CBC brass to reconsider. They reinstated the show, but it was too late for Dave Quinton. He had already started a freelance business, and although CBC management said he could come back, Dave had made a commitment to his first client in his new private business venture and, decent person that he is, would not break that contract.
Sifting through old tapes of Land and Sea programs.
He continued in the same line of business and actually developed two or three programs for Land and Sea in his new role. The show that became one of the most successful in Newfoundland and Labrador media history has passed its fiftieth year. Dave Quinton can claim a lot of credit for that success and, rightfully, he will be part of the celebrations later this year.
Dave doesn’t have a particular highlight from his years with Land and Sea. There were too many of them to narrow it down to just a few, he says. But there is one incident that he remembers vividly.
Dave accepting CBC President’s Award, 1982.
He and cameraman Ed Bowdring were shooting footage for a show about the Willing Lass, the last of the Labrador class of fishing schooners. They were shooting at Belle Isle, at the northern tip of Newfoundland, in what Dave describes as the roughest place in the whole province. They had hired a longliner fishing vessel out of St. Anthony to take them to Belle Isle and were just about finished shooting on board the schooner when, suddenly, someone yelled out that the longliner was on fire. There was no one on the boat at the time, so there was no danger of loss of life or injury, but Dave lost all 5,000 feet of film they had shot, all his personal possessions, and $1,000 cash that he carried for business expenses (credit cards were not used in remote places like Belle Isle). On top of all that, the harsh weather and rough seas prevented any vessel from rescuing them for a couple of days.
Now in his late seventies, Dave continues to work when he can. A couple of health issues slowed him down for a while, but he’s back working again these days. His productions have included programs for the International Grenfell Association (IGA), and one about a Newfoundlander who made a very successful life as a sheep rancher in Argentina. That job took him to Patagonia and around the infamous Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. He’s keenly interested in the French presence in Newfoundland and Labrador and is still doing work on that.
Dave Quinton is the same amiable and gentlemanly person he always was, and despite a few hard knocks in recent years, he is aging very gracefully and is still busy producing high-quality television and audiovisual programs.